Help with 6-month-old baby who has trouble napping

[malayasmommy]

Brief background--my son is almost 6 months and my very busy daughter is 3.5 years.  She has never been the type to "play quietly with crayons or read books".  Basically the only way to keep her quiet for longer than 3 min is to turn on the TV. 

My son sleeps pretty well at night.  I nurse him or my hubby rocks him to sleep, we put him in the co-sleeper, and he'll wake 1-2x/night--totally normal and fine with me at this point. It's the naps that I'm really struggling with, so any thoughts or suggestions would be wonderful.

Here is what we do for naps:

I start by taking him in a dark room and rocking/nursing.  When he's sleepy, I take the nipple out of his mouth and let him fall asleep without nursing.  Then i put him down in the co-sleeper.  Sometimes he goes right to sleep, sleeps for an hour and we are all happy.  Most of the time, he'll wake up once and i repeat--then about 75% of the time he goes to sleep after the 2nd attempt.  My problem is what to do when he doesn't go to sleep after the 2nd attempt.  By the time attempt #2 is done, I've had my daughter parked in front of the TV for 20-30 min and now show #2 has started and I don't think it's fair to turn it off right in the middle.  So by then she's had 50 min of TV already and i know he's going to want to try to sleep in about an hour.  So what do I do--park her in front of the TV for even LONGER to put him to sleep?  Either way it sucks.

I"ve tried the method of putting him down and going back when he fusses, but by then he's woken himself up and won't go back to sleep--when I've tried that it puts me at working for an hour to get him to sleep for 20 min.  I'll admit, I get extremely frustrated when that happens. 

I am vehemently against "Cry It Out" but I am also vehemently against my 6 month old son sleeping for only 9 hours per day.  I can't imagine that's any better for his development, psyche, etc. than CIO.  (Not suggesting by any means that I will CIO, but making the comparison of how bad BOTH of them are.) 

He will sleep when I wear him but again...I have a 3.5 year old who is very loud and wakes him up after a very short time sleeping.  He will also sleep in a swing, but he's a big 6-month-old and has pretty much outgrown his swing.  I will occasionally put him in there but I worry about safety--and anyway, I will have to figure this out without a swing someday so I might as well do it now right????

I have a heating pad down to make the co-sleeper warm for him, I swaddle him. 

Any suggestions would be great.  The guilt I feel over not being able to help him sleep really tears me up. 

[tooraloora]

My DD was 5 when my DS was born, but still really struggled with being quiet. Still does more than a year later. She one of those kids who never, ever stops talking. Ever. She even talks in her sleep (and the three of us share a room). What made matters worse is that for the first several months of DS' life, he could sleep through anything BUT his sister's voice. Radio, ringing phone, loud traffic, construction work, you name it, he could sleep through it, but DD talking meant wake up and play. I'd beg her to hush long enough for him to take a nap, and bless her, she'd try, but after about 2-5 minutes she'd forget.

Finally I just gave up on trying to get her to be quiet and hoped that eventually he'd get used to the noise. For a couple months, I wore him for naps and used that time for chores so that I was constantly moving. DD woke him up frequently, but being walked around in the mei tai knocked him back out pretty much immediately. Somewhere along the line, he started tuning her out.

At 14 months, he lays down on his own for naps in the living room, and he can sleep through the typical DD noise even though she's usually playing about 5 feet from him. When she's more loud than normal and is having a hard time quieting down (like when our roommate's son is here) I send her (and roomie's DS if he's here) to one of the bedrooms to play telling her/them they can carry on as they'd like in there as long as the door stays closed, or I'll use that time to get a little gardening done and take her outside to help, letting her burn off some of that excess energy.

Oh, also, I've learned that nap time is an excellent time for dishes. I used to load the dishwasher prior to nap time and then run it while he was sleeping. The sound from the dishwasher tended to drown out the noise from DD enough so that she didn't disturb him. Washing machine worked pretty well, too.

[malayasmommy]

That's good to know that eventually he tuned her out.  Not a bad idea to start wearing him in hopes that he adjusts to it.  Yeah, my daughter is one of those never.stops.talking. types too.  :-)

What about the idea that when babies sleep, they go through sleep/wake cycles and that when they wake they need to be doing the same thing they were doing when they went to sleep?  i.e. if they fall asleep with you rocking them, they will wake up and expect that they need to be rocked to sleep again?  It's talked about in "No Cry Sleep Solution", and it makes sense to me.  However, if I put DS down to sleep awake, he starts to cry.  Not sure how to help him with that if he starts crying when he goes to sleep.

Another thought I had is that he HATES sleeping with his arms swaddled, although I am thinking that's part of what wakes him up--he startles himself, moves his arms, and he wakes up.  He can work his arms out of any swaddle, I tell you!  My DD was the same way.  Maybe I will try to find one of those blankets that you can actually velcro to keep his arms in. 

[jacksmom0115]

If he doesn't like being tightly swaddled, you can try a Woombie (it's a bit loose) or you can do a sleepsack but just keep his arms in. Kinda retrains them but still allows a bit of movement. 

[~Adorkable~]

Woombies are great for exscape artist and older babes that need to be able to move a bit more.